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A C O L L E C T I O N O F P R O D U C T S F R O M O U R P A R T N E R S
2
Jedd Cole
Assistant Editor,
Modern Machine Shop
6915 Valley Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45244
PH: 513.527.8800
FX: 513.527.8801
Chairman & CEO
Rick Kline Sr.
Director of
Custom Content
Tom Beard
Director of
Market Intelligence
Steve Kline Jr.
President
Rick Kline Jr.
Group Publisher
Travis Egan
Director of
Marketing & Events
Dave Necessary
COO
Melissa Kline Skavlem
Treasurer
Ernie Brubaker
Director of
Editorial Operations
Kate Hand
Three Truths about Machine Tool Research
The story of one engineer reveals how Techspex saves time as a centralized
apparatus for preliminary research capital equipment acquisition.
I was recently talking with an engineer
working in the oil and energy sector. Back
in the 1990s, he was working for a machine
tool manufacturer as part of a small team
in charge of purchasing capital goods. Their
task? Decide whether to replace or rebuild
a large CNC horizontal turret lathe (HTL). To
offer a purchase proposal, the team needed
to appraise their options, which entailed
comparing between the specs of comparable
machines from various manufacturers. As a
matter of course for working at a machine-
tool OEM, he had a database of machine
specs from international machine builders
already available.
"As a young engineer, it was an asset to
me to be able to quickly see what other
manufacturers made," he says. (I am leaving
him unidentified, since he spoke to me off the
record.) Ultimately, they decided they'd be
better off rebuilding the lathe.
Once he moved on to work for different
companies, such a database was no longer
ready at hand. Sometime in the 2000s, he
found Techspex, which proved to be the
closest thing to what he'd had working for an
OEM. He's been using it ever since to quickly
identify builders of any particular machine
he's looking for.
The story of the HTL decision reveals a few
important truths about research. First:
access to thousands of machine specs for
comparison doesn't always lead to a decision
to buy one of them. Nevertheless, a decision
for or against acquisition (and of exactly which
machine) will always profit from having as
much data in hand as possible.
Second: data can be hard to get ahold of.
Before he found Techspex, the engineer had
no other option than to browse individual
OEM websites and trade journals—hardly a
systematic process!
Third: time is a complicating factor of critical
importance during the research process. This
is why Techspex is so valuable to the engineer:
"It allows me to quickly sort specs in order
to make a short list of potential machines
to evaluate for my projects." Besides its
automation of the data organization process,
he appreciates that Techspex simplifies
requests for information and quotes.
"Techspex provides a lot of information with
minimal effort, allowing more time to focus on
the process and finalize the scope of
the project."